This is the adorable moment a giant panda wows onlookers by SOMERSAULTING around his enclosure

Hua Rong is two years old and lives in Sichuan Province, China

Video

By Sara Kamouni

30th August 2016, 10:27 pm

Updated: 30th September 2016, 2:54 am

AN ADORABLE panda cub has enthralled onlookers after rolling around his enclosure and doing somersaults on the fresh grass.

The two-year-old giant panda known as Hua Rong has only recently gained independence from his mum and is learning to spend time in his private "home" in the Gengda Wolong Panda Center, China.

And it seems with the dog days of summer finally over, Hua Rong, whose name translates as "the pride of China", is now also able to enjoy more time under the sun at the Wolong National Nature Reserve, which is in Wenchuan County in south-western China’s Sichuan Province.

In footage taken from the nature reserve, considered to be the homeland of wild giant pandas, Hua Rong can be seen running around his enclosure and then tumbling along the grass, making full use of the slope in his "garden".

Rolling, the energy-efficient mode of transport, is both fast and cute, with Hua Rong’s talent show having now been viewed tens of thousands of times by internet users across the globe and especially in China, where there are dedicated cameras trained 24 hours on cubs and adults.

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With Hua Rong now weighing over seven stone, he will find it more and more taxing to move around, especially as his diet changes from milk to almost exclusively eating bamboo.

But unlike in the wild, Hua Rong and his fellow panda cubs will find no natural predators in their enclosures, with round-the-clock staff taking care of their every need.

The Wolong National Nature Reserve was first established in 1963 and covers an area of about 200,000 hectares in the Qionglai Mountains, where there are about 4,000 different species of animal.

The reserve is home to some 150 pandas, which are a first-class state-protected species in China and also classified as endangered on the Red List of Threatened Species - compiled by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).